The following beautiful and poetical passage must suffice. A man pure in character but maligned on earth has appealed to the spirit of his dead wife for sympathy: "Spirit of the departed! do you know that I am innocent? "He raised his eyes, and a curdling thrill crept through his veins! for, lo! the prayer, that, almost silently, had welled up from the sanctuary of his soul, had reached its aim, and had an answer. The far depths of the room became gradually brightened with a glory, not of this world; and a dim, thin, human shape, slowly developed its indistinct and shadowy outline, by insensibly divesting itself, as it were, of one immortal shroud after another, till it stood, pale and confessed, in ethereal repose."-Manuscripts of Erdely, vol. i., p. 307. Mrs. Shelley has published, besides “Frankenstein," a romance entitled " Valperga," which is less known than the former, but is of high merit. She exhibits in her hero, a brave and successful warrior, arriving at the height of his ambition, endowed with uncommon beauty and strength, and with many good qualities, yet causes him to excite emotions of reprobation and pity, because he is cruel and a tyrant, and because in the truth of things he is unhappy. This is doing a good work, taking the false glory from the eyes and showing things as they are. There are two female characters of won derful power and beauty. The heroine is a lovely and noble creation. The work taken as a whole, if below "Frankenstein" in genius, is yet worthy of its author and of her high rank in the aristocracy of genius, as the daughter of Godwin and Mary Wolstonecraft, and the widow of Shelley. ROBERT MONTGOMERY. "Parnassus is transformed to Zion Hill, Satire 8. Mr. P.-"My friend !-(patting his shoulder)-this is not a bell. (Patting the tin bell.) It is a very fine Organ!"-Drama of Punch. HUMOUR may be divided into thrée classes; the broad, the quiet, and the covert. Broad humour is extravagant, voluble, obtrusive, full of rich farce and loud laughter:quiet humour is retiring, suggestive, exciting to the ima gination, few of words, and its pictures grave in tone :covert humour, (which also comprises quiet humour,) is allegorical, typical, and of cloven tongue-its double sense frequently delighting to present the reverse side of its real meaning, to smile when most serious, to look grave when most facetiously disposed. Of this latter class are the comic poems of the ingenious Robert Montgomery, a humourist whose fine original vein has never been rightly appreciated by his contemporaries. He has been scoffed at by the profane for writing unmeaning nonsense, when that very nonsense had the most disinterested and excellent moral aim; he has passed for a quack, when he nobly made his muse a martyr; he has been laughed at, when he should have been admired; he has been gravely admired when his secret laughter should have found response in every inside. He has been extensively purchased; but he has not been understood. In these stirring times when theologies are looking up, and the ribald tongues of fifty thousand sectarian pulpits wag wrathfully around the head of the Established Maternity; while she herself is suffering intestine pains from dangerous wars, and the pure spirit of Religion is wandering and waiting in the distant fields; it behoves all those thrifty shepherds who are still disposed to multiply the goods of this world, and take up the burdens and vain pomps which others being less strong, may, peradventure, find too onerous,-it behoves such shepherds, we repeat, to look keenly through and beneath all these struggles and backslidings, and to watch over the movements of wealthy congregations. It is not to be denied that with the vigorous elements which distinguish the spirit of the present age, are mingled many weaknesses and short-comings; that winding about its truthfulness there are many falsehoods and hypocrisies; that the battle for the right is but too frequently mixed up and confused with the battle for the wrong; and that amidst so much that is high-minded and sincere, there is perhaps still more that is selfish and cunning, that is, in fact, not genuine but humbugeous. "The London Charivari," to which allusion has previously been made on page 163, comprises the three classes of humour described at the opening of this paper, and may also be said to have a wit and humour peculiar to itself. The application of these faculties, being always liable to exert a powerful influence for good or evil, has been from the very first commencement of that periodical, devoted to the cause of justice, of good feeling, and of truth. The most "striking" characteristic of this "Punch" is his hatred and ridicule of all gravefaced pretences and charlatanry. Considering his very unscrupulous nature, it is remarkable how little there is of actual private personality in him. If he strikes at a man domestically, which is very rare, it is by no means on account of his quiet "hearth-stone," but of his public humbugeosity. Never before were so many witty, humorous, and choice-spirited individuals amicably associated together for anything like so long a period; and never before did so many perfectly freespoken wits and humourists indulge their fancies and make their attacks with so good-natured a spirit, and without one spark of wanton mischief and malignity. It is a marked sign of good in the present age. In this same light, and to these same moral aims,though with a characteristic difference such as marks all original genius-do we regard the public character and works of the much-admired yet equally maligned Robert Montgomery. At some future time, and when his high purpose can no longer be injured by a discovery of its inner wheels and movements, springs and fine escapements—at such a period he may perhaps vouchsafe a key to all his great works; meantime, however, in his defence, because we are unable to bear any longer the spectacle of so total a misconception of a man's virtues and talents in the public mind, we will offer a few elucidatory comments upon two of his larger productions. The poem of " Satan" is evidently the work of a great free-thinker. Far be it from us to use this much-abused and perverted expression in any but its true sense, with regard to Mr. Robert Montgomery. Freely he thinks of all spiritual and mundane things; in fact, his freedom amounts to a singular degree of familiarity with those Essences and Subjects concerning which nearly everybody else entertains too much awe, and doubt of themselves, to venture upon anything like proximity or circumambience. But though the thinking faculty of Mr. Robert Montgomery makes thus free, it is only within the bounds of the " Establishment," as defined in his Preface, though not necessarily governed in all other respects, to use his own inimitable words,-by "the sternness of adamantine orthodoxy.”* In support of the spiritual part of his treatment of his subject, and referring to the free-thinking of his hero (who is not only the Prince of Air, but the London Perambulator, as proved by this poem), Mr. Montgomery quotes the following from high authority:-"Thus the Devil has undoubtedly a great degree of speculative knowledge in divinity; having been as it were, educated in the best divinity school in the universe," &c. He also quotes from the same author (Jonathan Edwards) that "it is evident he (the Devil) has a great speculative knowledge of the nature of experimental religion." These preliminary statements of the more enlarged view we should take of the Satanic mind, and its many unsuspected acquirements, together with much more which we cannot venture to quote, will be found in the Preface to the fourth edition of this accomplished Prince. Having stated the spiritual or "experimental" drift; we have only now to point to the worldly activity or practical application, and we shall at once find a key to this sublimely humorous design, and its high moral purpose. This application we shall find in the covert parody of the "Devil's Walk" (the one which has been ascribed jointly to Porson and to Southey), which for the force * Preface to the Fifth Edition of "Satan," p. 2. and piquancy of its satire has rarely been surpassed. Accordingly, Mr. Robert Montgomery considers the hero of his poem, as a real, personal, and highly intellectual agent, walking about London-he distinctly alludes to London-so that, to follow out this poet's excursion, we might meet Satan on 'Change, hear his voice on Waterloo Bridge, see him taking a jelly in the saloon of Drury Lane theatre, or seated demurely in a pew at Church, with a psalter stuck on his off-horn. Mr. Montgomery intimates and suggests all these sort of things,-nay, he directly describes many of the circumstances. For instance, Satan goes to the play. To what part of the house is not said. His natural locality would of course be the pit, and, for this very reason, he would probably prefer the one shilling gallery; but as Mr. Montgomery clearly explains that his hero went there on businessto collect materials for this very poem, which is written as a diabolico-theological and philosophical soliloquyit is to be presumed that he was in the boxes. He thus describes a few of his observations, and personal sensations. "Music and Pomp their mingling spirit shed Around me; beauties in their cloud-like robes Of flush'd enjoyment." Satan, Book V. The comparison of a theatrical scene with a scene "Upon the forehead of these fearless times" in paradise, and made by one who had actually been in both places, would be more bold than reverent, in any other writer; nor are we by any means sure that Satan or his poet could show the slightest foundation for it. But we bow to their joint authority. He next describes the different classes of the audience. Some wish to mount upon Shakspeare's wings, and "win a flash" of his thought; but the second, he says, are a sensual tribe;" 66 "Convened to hear romantic harlots sing, Ibid. Well may this stern "spirit" feel it delicious, after the very different kind of flame to which he has been elsewhere accustomed. This is to write philosophy and history, moral satire and autobiography, all under one highly humorous head. EE |